Welcome to the Chesapeake Chapter AHTA website.   This is your resource page for regional and national activity in horticultural therapy.   We are one of the regional chapters of our national organization, American Horticultural Therapy Association. Our region covers the metro DC area to include:   Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware.   Come join us!

HISTORY

The Chesapeake Chapter AHTA was officially approved by AHTA as one of its regional chapters in October 1999. Our mission reads "The Chesapeake Chapter of the American Horticultural Therapy Association strives to be a creative and responsive leader to promote the use of horticulture as a therapeutic and rehabilitative tool to improve the health and wellbeing of all people."   We are a membership driven organization, organized by all volunteers, and have promoted the use of horticultural therapy through conferences, presentations, and the establishment of the Celebration of Horticultural Therapy.   This celebration promotes National Horticultural Therapy Week, an annual week of promoting the benefits, principles and practices of the profession of horticultural therapy.   The Chesapeake Chapter is a 501c3 organization and all donations are tax deductible.

HORTICULTURAL THERAPY

"Horticultural therapy is a process through which plants, gardening activities, and the innate closeness we all feel toward nature are used as vehicles in professionally conducted programs of therapy and rehabilitation" - Steven Davis 1994.   Horticultural therapy is not a new therapy.   The garden was a prescription for all ills of the mind before psychiatry became a science.   Today programs use horticulture as a treatment modality through educational, therapeutic and recreational interventions.   The reachable goal is improvement of an individual's physical and mental health, through the benefits that horticultural therapy provides.   Horticultural therapy provides documented success in ones treatment.   Programs of horticultural therapy can be found in rehabilitation facilities, hospitals, schools, prisons, nursing homes, substance abuse treatment centers, day centers for those with impairments, vocational training programs and at botanical gardens offering programs for those in their communities.

Who to contact:
Lana Dreyfuss MA, CRC, HTR
President of Chesapeake Chapter AHTA
lanadreyfuss@yahoo.com
240-515-5122 cell
301-649-7469 home

Contents copyright © 2007 Chesapeake Chapter of American Horticultural Therapy Association